Can't open excel

[Jonsson]

Hi,
I have office2000 installed, and suddenly my excelfiles won't open.
When I open a file, anyone, even "book1", it opens for a second and then closes down immidiately.
Can anyone solve this problem?

//Thomas

[Ken Wright]

Any error messages?

--
Regards
Ken....................... Microsoft MVP - Excel
Sys Spec - Win XP Pro / XL 97/00/02/03

------------------------------*------------------------------*----------------
It's easier to beg forgiveness than ask permission :-)
------------------------------*------------------------------*----------------


"Jonsson" <[email protected]> wrote in
message news:[email protected]...
>
> Hi,
> I have office2000 installed, and suddenly my excelfiles won't open.
> When I open a file, anyone, even "book1", it opens for a second and
> then closes down immidiately.
> Can anyone solve this problem?
>
> //Thomas
>
>
> --
> Jonsson
> ------------------------------------------------------------------------
> Jonsson's Profile:
> http://www.excelforum.com/member.php...fo&userid=5472
> View this thread: http://www.excelforum.com/showthread...hreadid=506134
>

[Jonsson]

No messages, just open for a second, and then closes.
It's the same behaviour on all my workbooks.
Excel worked fine yesterday, but today they can't be opened.
It seems that excel.exe just shut down without any reason. I have looked at the taskmanager, if excelprocess is running, but it's not.

I really need some help here. I have searched for viruses, using Norton 2005, but itlooks like I'm free from viruses.

//Thomas

[Dave Peterson]

Chip Pearson has some notes on how to diagnose startup errors at:
http://www.cpearson.com/excel/StartupErrors.htm

And Jan Karel Pieterse has more notes at:
http://www.jkp-ads.com/Articles/StartupProblems.htm

A couple of guesses.

1. Clean up the windows temp folder. (then test it out)

2. sometimes the file that holds the customized toolbar settings gets hosed.
close excel
windows start button|Find (or search)
search for *.xlb
rename them to *.xlbOLD
restart excel

if it worked, delete the *.xlbOLD files and rebuild any customized toolbars.

If it didn't, rename them back to *.xlb---and read Chip's notes carefully!

Jonsson wrote:
>
> No messages, just open for a second, and then closes.
> It's the same behaviour on all my workbooks.
> Excel worked fine yesterday, but today they can't be opened.
> It seems that excel.exe just shut down without any reason. I have
> looked at the taskmanager, if excelprocess is running, but it's not.
>
> I really need some help here. I have searched for viruses, using Norton
> 2005, but itlooks like I'm free from viruses.
>
> //Thomas
>
> --
> Jonsson
> ------------------------------------------------------------------------
> Jonsson's Profile: http://www.excelforum.com/member.php...fo&userid=5472
> View this thread: http://www.excelforum.com/showthread...hreadid=506134

--

Dave Peterson

[Jonsson]

Hi guys,

I have tried the solutions you have suggested, but no luck.
I have also reinstall the office2000.
I can see that excel starts, but then it's closing down by itself.
I can open the files if I move them to another computer, so there's nothing wrong in them.
Therefore, it must be xlstart that closes byitself, but why, and shouldn't that file be removed and replaced when unistalling/reinstalling the program?
I have never experienced this problem before.

Any idea´s left?

//Thomas

[Dave Peterson]

If you try with excel in safe mode, what happens?

close excel
windows start button|run
excel /safe
file|Open your workbook

(and you tried renaming all the *.xlb files and that didn't help--this is a
common cause of trouble.)

Jonsson wrote:
>
> Hi guys,
>
> I have tried the solutions you have suggested, but no luck.
> I have also reinstall the office2000.
> I can see that excel starts, but then it's closing down by itself.
> I can open the files if I move them to another computer, so there's
> nothing wrong in them.
> Therefore, it must be xlstart that closes byitself, but why, and
> shouldn't that file be removed and replaced when
> unistalling/reinstalling the program?
> I have never experienced this problem before.
>
> Any idea´s left?
>
> //Thomas
>
> --
> Jonsson
> ------------------------------------------------------------------------
> Jonsson's Profile: http://www.excelforum.com/member.php...fo&userid=5472
> View this thread: http://www.excelforum.com/showthread...hreadid=506134

--

Dave Peterson

[Jonsson]

Hi,
If I open in safe mode, excel starts and ask for "username", when answered that, excel closes.
What do you mean by "common problem in excel"? Is this a bug?
I cant understand why the excel.exe has the same problem/error when reinstalling?

And most important: What do I have to do to make it work again?
Fomat the disk? (Rather not!)
Will it help?

[Ken Wright]

The *.xlb file is is not replaced when uninstalling/reinstalling. Did you
delete this file?

Regards
Ken...............

"Jonsson" <[email protected]> wrote in
message news:[email protected]...
>
> Hi,
> If I open in safe mode, excel starts and ask for "username", when
> answered that, excel closes.
> What do you mean by "common problem in excel"? Is this a bug?
> I cant understand why the excel.exe has the same problem/error when
> reinstalling?
>
> And most important: What do I have to do to make it work again?
> Fomat the disk? (Rather not!)
> Will it help?
>
>
> --
> Jonsson
> ------------------------------------------------------------------------
> Jonsson's Profile:
> http://www.excelforum.com/member.php...fo&userid=5472
> View this thread: http://www.excelforum.com/showthread...hreadid=506134
>

[Dave Peterson]

A corrupt *.xlb file can cause lots of problems with excel crashing. I guess if
you can call corruption a bug, then it's a bug.

But if you started excel in safe mode and it still crashed, then the toolbar
isn't the problem. (Starting in safe mode stops a lot of things from starting,
including the customized toolbar.)

I don't know why you would get prompted for a username in safe mode. I never
have.

I think I would try reinstalling excel/office before I formatted the harddrive.

And depending on your version of windows, this may help:

OFF2000: Utility to Completely Remove Remaining Office CD1 Files and
Registry Entries
http://support.microsoft.com/?kbid=239938



Jonsson wrote:
>
> Hi,
> If I open in safe mode, excel starts and ask for "username", when
> answered that, excel closes.
> What do you mean by "common problem in excel"? Is this a bug?
> I cant understand why the excel.exe has the same problem/error when
> reinstalling?
>
> And most important: What do I have to do to make it work again?
> Fomat the disk? (Rather not!)
> Will it help?
>
> --
> Jonsson
> ------------------------------------------------------------------------
> Jonsson's Profile: http://www.excelforum.com/member.php...fo&userid=5472
> View this thread: http://www.excelforum.com/showthread...hreadid=506134

--

Dave Peterson

[Jonsson]

Ok, I removed the xlb-file and uninstalled and reinstalled. No change.
I tried to run the removaltool, but as I have XP as operating system, the removaltool did not support that.

Sorry, but I still need help with this.

//Thomas

[Dave Peterson]

Here's hoping that someone else has a suggestion. I'm out.

Jonsson wrote:
>
> Ok, I removed the xlb-file and uninstalled and reinstalled. No change.
> I tried to run the removaltool, but as I have XP as operating system,
> the removaltool did not support that.
>
> Sorry, but I still need help with this.
>
> //Thomas
>
> --
> Jonsson
> ------------------------------------------------------------------------
> Jonsson's Profile: http://www.excelforum.com/member.php...fo&userid=5472
> View this thread: http://www.excelforum.com/showthread...hreadid=506134

--

Dave Peterson

[Jonsson]

Thanks anyway for your effort to help me.
I apprecciate that!

//Thomas

[Dave Peterson]

If you ever find the problem, please post back. Then google will have the
solution for the next victim.

ps. When you looked for *.xlb, did you look through hidden folders for hidden
files? Maybe you missed the one that causes the damage.

Or even shelling to DOS and running an old DOS command would be helpful:

Windows start button|Run
cmd (windows 2k/xp)
command (windows 98)

At the DOS prompt:
C: (to get to the C: drive)
cd\ (to get to the root directory)

dir *.xlb /s

the /s means to search through subdirectories.

Jonsson wrote:
>
> Thanks anyway for your effort to help me.
> I apprecciate that!
>
> //Thomas
>
> --
> Jonsson
> ------------------------------------------------------------------------
> Jonsson's Profile: http://www.excelforum.com/member.php...fo&userid=5472
> View this thread: http://www.excelforum.com/showthread...hreadid=506134

--

Dave Peterson